Professor Mark LeVine discussed the November 29 panel co-sponsored by the Department of History at UCI in a recent e-mail. Professor LeVine responded to criticism which suggested that the panel was biased against Israel, and that perhaps the Department of History should have had an additional person on the panel to present another viewpoint:

The goal of the panel was to give students the chance to talk to professors at UCI who work on the region. Out of the roughly half dozen people who fit that bill, we are the three who could make it. I also invited a professor from UCLA who’s a rabbi but he couldn’t make it. But the idea that this was ‘partial’ or ‘unbalanced’ is quite questionable. We had Michael Oren, who is from the conservative Shalem Center in Israel last year. Yesterday we had Rabbi Altshuler who is certainly not anti-Israel, we’ve had other Israelis in many times — and when we’ve done so the Jewish community has made silly — I could be less charitable — accusations such as they “support terrorists,” and the like when in fact they are on record as supporting the exact same position–a two state solution–as the vast majority of their fellow Israelis….”
Now let’s talk about today. You say much that was discussed was speculation–well there certainly was some speculation, but what was the title of the panel? It’s about 2007, that is, the whole point is to summarize about the events of this year and prognosticate about whether anything will change next year. Let’s talk about [Professor Lina] Kreidie’s discussion, one point of which was whether israel could have been involved in Gemayel’s assassination. Why is such speculation “biased”. Is her speculation that Syria too could have done it anti-Syrian? Of course not… in fact, as you are aware, since it’s on that Concerned UCI website, I’ve argued far more strongly than her that israel had the most to gain from the potential for civil war in Lebanon, although I specifically did not discuss this issue today. However, how is my speculation on this anti-Israel’? As an analyst of the region who’s lived and traveled extensively in both Israel and Lebanon I looked at the assassination, tried to figure out the costs-benefits calculus among all sides, looked at who has a history and capability of pulling that off, and my conclusion was that while many parties had the ability and the motive, in the current environment and political climate Israel would seem to be the only party that would gain a lot from Lebanon slipping into chaos and anarchy. You can disagree with this assessment, but saying it is “anti-Israel’ is nonsense, no more than saying that the US invaded Iraq for all or geostrategic reasons–for which there is ample evidence–is anti-American, although the Bush administration would certainly accuse you of that if you made such an argument. Even more insidious, quite frankly, is the headline of the ‘Concerned Student‘ website that accused me of saying that only the Jews could have killed Pierre. I think that such an accusation is intellectually and morally dishonest and in fact makes the same conflation between the Israeli government and Jews the world over as the Mullahs in Iran or Al-Qa’eda. Such an inaccurate generalizing from the Israeli government to Judaism as a religion and all Jews as people might work to inflame student and community sentiments, but is factually and morally wrong, and inimical to the principle or free and honest debate which is at the heart of the university’s mission.

Professor LeVine also suggested that other groups can organize their own panels, but asserted that campus communities might be putting too much stock in co-sponsorship.

“…You are welcome to organize any panels you want and ask for [the] history dept. co-sponsorship. If you are inviting recognized scholars to talk about issues in their areas of expertise I’m sure we’d be happy to oblige. Of course you might be putting a bit too much stock in co-sponsorship….”